Live ‘Ukulele

To plug in your ‘ukulele you need three things:

• An ‘ukulele with a pickup
• An instrument cable
• An amp

Plug one end of the instrument cable into the jack on the bottom of your ‘ukulele.

Plug the other end of the cable into the “input” jack on your amp. Plug the amp into an electrical outlet (or install batteries). Make sure that all of the volume knobs on your amp (volume and gain) and volume slider (or knob) on active pickup controls are set to 0. Turn your amp on. Turn the volume knob up as you play, until you reach the desired volume level (With an active pickup, turn your amp’s volume to halfway and then move the volume slider (or knob) to control the master volume). Play!

Amp controls:

• Input – jack where you plug the cable coming from the ‘ukulele in
• Volume – controls output volume
• Gain – controls input volume (distortion)
• Tone or EQ – controls which pitch range gets the most volume
• Amp models (some amps) – selects amp model
• Effects (some amps) – controls effect and amount

Feedback:

Feedback is the nasty screeching sound that you hear when a mic gets too close to a speaker. This can also happen with acoustic instruments. You get feedback when the amp’s speaker vibrates the strings of an instrument, and the pick-up feeds the signal back into the amp. This creates a loop that gets louder and louder. Feedback is most common when EQ settings are boosting a certain frequency.

How to Plug in Effects:

When you plug in an effect the signal line looks like this: ‘ukulele>cable>effect>cable>amp.

You need at least one instrument cable besides the one from your ‘ukulele to your amp (more depending on how many effects you are plugging in). Instead of directly plugging the cable into the amp, plug it into the “input” jack of the effect unit. (I’m assuming at this point that you have either installed batteries or plugged the effects unit into a wall outlet). Plug one end of the second cable into the “output” jack of the effect unit. Plug the other end into your amp.Make sure all volume controls are at zero on the ‘ukulele, effects, and amp. Slowly turn up the volume on the amp and ‘ukulele until you can hear a picked note. some effect units don’t bypass when they are off, so you might have to adjust the volume before you hear anything. With the volume knobs at zero, turn the effect on by stomping on the pedal or by flipping a switch. Then turn up the effect volumes (volume, gain, output, etc.) until you can hear yourself play. Change the parameters until the effect sounds how you like it.*this is just a rough guide so use your effect’s instruction manual as much as you can (you can find most online if you don’t have the original).

Check out the page on the Effects themselves